He travelled across America with train carriages full of illusions, an orchestra, and twenty assistants. His show lasted two hours and ended with the glowing floating body of a volunteer above the audience. Harry Blackstone Sr. was the last of an era — the American master of full-evening illusion theatre.
From Chicago worker to greatest touring magician
Born as Henry Boughton in 1885, Blackstone began as a vaudeville actor. His breakthrough came in the 1920s when he put together his own complete evening programme: dancers, comedy, music and magic. He toured for more than fifty years without stopping.
During WWII he travelled over 165,000 km to perform for American troops in Europe and the Pacific. He was honoured by the USO and later received his own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
- ✦Famous for: 'Dancing Handkerchief', 'Floating Lightbulb', 'Sawing a Woman in Half'
- ✦Own TV show in the 1950s
- ✦Father of Harry Blackstone Jr., who continued the show in the 1970s and 1980s
The woman who was sawn in two
Blackstone perfected the Sawing a Woman in Half illusion into a high point. Not as shock effect, but as theatre: his assistant smiled and waved as the saw went through her belly. It was human, not macabre. Decades later all modern sawing variants are direct descendants of his version.
His signature became the Floating Lightbulb: a bulb that floated through the hall, above audience heads, while Blackstone stood on the other side of the stage. The effect seemed supernatural — and to this day has no equal.
The end of the illusion show era
After the war TV and film rose, and the market for large touring illusion theatre collapsed. Blackstone kept touring until 1960, but halls became smaller, the orchestral accompaniment disappeared. He died in 1965, 80 years old, knowing he had closed the last chapter of an era.
His son Harry Blackstone Jr. revived the show in the 1970s as homage to his father. For a whole generation, that was their first encounter with world-class magic.
Blackstone Sr. was the bridge between vaudeville and modern stage magic. Without him, Las Vegas magic would look very different.